“Being adopted is like being a
piece of cheese. There are so many holes in you.”
-Erik, 12
Adoption law, like all other law, reflects the culture and beliefs of the time. The ancient institution of adoption included the sharing of identities between participants, a custom that still occurs in many cultures. Secrecy is a recent introduction to adoption, in both practice and in statute
Minnesota first closed off adoption court records to public inspection in 1917, but not to the families involved. This measure was meant to protect the privacy of the participants from public scrutiny in an era where adoption was a hushed conversation. Still, adopted persons had access to their original birth certificates and received a Certificate of Adoption when their adoptions were finalized in court.
In 1945, Minnesota imposed complete secrecy on adoption by sealing the court’s adoption records and the child’s original birth certificate. By doing so, Minnesota joined other states around the country in amending adoption laws to fit a culture of shame that stigmatized infertility, out-of-wedlock birth and adoption. Birth records, as recommended by adoption agencies, social services and legal authorities, were now closed to the adult adopted persons whose birth they registered.
In 1977, in response to the growing number adopted persons and birth parents returning to agencies to find each other, Minnesota created an intermediary process, requiring the adoption agency, upon request of an adopted adult, to contact their birth parents, advise them of the request and ask that they submit an Affidavit of Disclosure or Non-Disclosure of the original birth record with the Department of Vital Statistics. The statute applicable to all adoptions previously granted did not allow for recourse if the birth parent refused to consent. In 1982, Minnesota’s legislature established a second and more comprehensive statute, requiring adopted agencies to provide a more comprehensive array of services to birth parents, adoptive parents, adopted adults and siblings. The statute stated that adopted persons aged 19 and older who had been adopted after August 1, 1982 could, upon request, be given the identifying information on their birth record by the adoption agency. Birth parents were to be advised of their right to sign an Affidavit of Disclosure or Non-Disclosure of the information. However, the adopted person was also advised that if the birth parent did not wish disclosure of the information, they could petition the court for release of the birth record. The court was vested with the authority to grant the request “for good cause” or if the court thought the need for that information outweighed the birthparent request for anonymity.
Despite the 1982 provision, for Minnesota adopted persons and birth parents, search continues to be a bureaucratic, expensive and very slow process with few successes. Tracking of search calls received by an adoption help line found that of 78 search calls received from June through December, 2003, the biggest obstacles to search were agency costs and bureaucracy. Callers revealed that payments to agencies did not result in release of information and that the current system of locating birth family does not work for a majority of adopted persons.
As a result of Roe v. Wade and changing societal views about having children outside marriage, birthmothers began in the seventies to require more say in the adoption process. Clearly, what they wanted was not secrecy. Open adoption, offering a variety of communication opportunities between birth and adoptive families, has become over the past 20 years common with infant adoptions. Thus, the period in which birthmothers were presumed to want secrecy lasted less than 35 years.
Public attitudes, affected by reunions in the media and the genealogy craze, are changing about equalizing the rights of adopted adults. Social change as well as the widespread practice of open adoption is diminishing the secrecy in what was once a closed adoption system. At issue is that adopted adults are the only American-born citizens denied access to their original birth information.
Attempts to change adoption statutes have been met with pervading false myths and well-intentioned but erroneous established attitudes about adoption. Research and the experience of states that have instituted adoption reform reveal that:
The Minnesota proposed law addresses the need and constitutional right of adopted persons to their birth information. The law would return adoption to its traditional form and leave behind the radical, expensive, and dangerous experiment of secrecy.
Currently nine states recognize the once universal right of adult adopted persons to unrestricted information about their origins: Alaska, Alabama, Delaware, Kansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oregon, South Dakota, and Tennessee. In addition to Minnesota, six other states are currently pursuing legislation to release original birth certificates to adopted adults: Connecticut, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New York, and New Jersey. One day the number of states allowing adopted persons access to birth records will reach a critical "tipping point," a point after which a majority of states will reject secrecy as expeditiously as they once embraced it.
The poem, “Watermelon Hill” and Linda Back McKay’s book, Shadow Mothers: Stories of Adoption and Reunion inspired a play that was produced at the Great American History Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota. Now in reunion with her son, McKay portrays the vast continuum of birthmother experiences inside compelling poetry and poignant non-fiction. To order Linda Back McKay’s books, see www.visi.com/~lbmckay/author.htm
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Copyright © Minnesota Coalition for Adoption Reform. All rights reserved
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